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Boost your website’s customer focus for better engagement.

Welcome to part 3 of my series on creating a customer-centric website.

In this interaction-packed post, I’m going to tell you how to get visitors to act – we’re talking “engagement” – as in give you their email or agree meet with you.

So. You got them to your site. Good job. Now what? You’re not just going to hand them a brochure and invite them to look around. No.

You’re going to lead them down a well-thought-out path that fulfills their needs as well as your own. This post provides you with tips on the elements that ease visitors’ journey and lead to conversions. Let’s start with the basics.

KISSIN (Keep It Simple In Navigation?)

Opt for navigation that doesn’t make visitors think. (Have you read that book yet? Don’t Make Me Think) Avoid clever and punchy nav terms that might confuse visitors. I know, we’re all sick of the standard terms and I’m all for creativity, but it’s silly to ignore the data: intuitive terms work.

Get the good neighbor award.

Be considerate of visitors’ needs. Give them the information they need for their business and where they are in the buyers’ journey. Make it easy for them to find their own path: are they in the awareness stage or the consideration stage? You’re not going to sell a newbie who’s just browsin’ so offer them an informational piece. As for visitors in the consideration phase, offer them a demo or a comparison piece that guides them as they research their options. And be sure and put these offers prominently and repeatedly throughout your site so visitors don’t have to search for them.

Don’t leave them hanging.

Suggest the next step—always and on every page. Provide relevant links to posts or other pages in your site that enable visitors to go deeper into a topic. And never-ever link them away from your site—at least not before they give you something, namely their email.

Don’t make visitors invite themselves to your party.

It’s your job to invite visitors to connect. So make it easy for them. Make it clear and don’t be shy about it. Visitors need to be urged along. Your priority is to make a sale. In business-to-business, it may be rare that someone is going to buy without any personal interaction, but you have to try. If they want to buy, you want to be able to sell. So have a clear and prominent “Get Started” call-to-action (CTA). Put it in the main nav and also in the footer.

Let’s take this relationship to the next level.

Most likely, your visitors are going to need to take an intermediary step, like a demo, before they pull the trigger, so offer that at least as prominently, or maybe more prominently, than your get-started CTA.

Consider a bribe.

The majority of your visitors who are in the consideration phase are seeking information. Don’t let this group get away without giving you their information. Offer them a high-value piece of content like an article or exclusive access to research. This “lead enticer” moves prospects closer to a sales conversation. It also puts prospects who are in the education phase on your radar to check back with them later on. And if they’re in the comparing options phase, it enables you to follow up with a sales piece, case study or checklist–content relevant to them in their stage of the buyers’ journey.

No one leaves your site without giving you their email.

No one. So if they’re not ready for a demo and don’t need your content, get them on your email list. But don’t just make the mistake of saying “sign up for our newsletter.” Instead, tell them the value they’ll receive by allowing you to contact them occasionally. Here are some examples:

Yes, keep me on the leading edge of what’s happening.

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For shy visitors, try being more social.

Some visitors just won’t give it up. For them, a less intimate means of connecting may be social.Are you tweeting? Posting articles on LinkedIn? Invite visitors to follow you there. Any opportunity to stay connected and in front of visitors to your site is worthwhile. That’s how relationships are formed. It’s how they get to know, like and trust you over time. But that won’t happen if you don’t invite them. So do it!

Ready, Action.

Like the customer-focused tips you just read? Get even more by reading Part 1 for general guidelines or Part 2 for pointers on increasing the persona-appeal of specific web pages.

And if your website copy is high on your list of action items, then now’s the perfect time for us to talk. Contact me to set up a short phone call. I’ll get back with some times and you tell me what works.